


We'll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning

by lackofpatience



Series: The Lion and the Thorn [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, I told you that rating would change, Infidelity, Outdoor Sex, Pillow Talk, Spiders, always the maker-damned spiders, everyone loves killin' bandits, fight fight fight kiss kiss kiss, idk - Freeform, killin' bandits, praying, references to past consensual sexual violence?, talking talking so much talking, that rating will probably change, the details really only matter to her, vague grey warden stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-07 01:43:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5438855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lackofpatience/pseuds/lackofpatience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I cannot see the path.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Perhaps there is only abyss.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Trembling, I step forward,</i>
  <br/>
  <i>In darkness enveloped.</i>
</p><p>Cullen and Surana have mutual business in the Western Approach.  He still really wants to understand her.  And to not do anything to screw things up with Lavellan.  But mostly the first thing.</p><p>Nobody's really sure <i>what</i> it is Surana wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When the Deal Goes Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen prays.

_“Maker, my enemies are abundant._  
_Many are those who rise up against me._  
_But my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion,_  
_Should they set themselves against me._

_“In the long hours of the night_  
_When hope has abandoned me,_  
_I will see the stars and know_  
_Your Light remains.”_

Instinctively, Cullen’s eyes flick upward, even if he knows there’s nothing to be seen there but the roof of his tent. He’s been at it for long enough to start forgetting himself. That’s a good thing, right? Aside from the slight crick in his neck he’s getting from kneeling for so long, anyway. It all used to be so much easier.

_“I have heard the sound_  
_A song in the stillness,_  
_The echo of Your voice,_  
_Calling creation to wake from its slumber._

_“How can we know You?_  
_In the turning of the seasons, in life and death,_  
_In the empty space where our hearts_  
_Hunger for a forgotten face?”_

His voice falters slightly, and Cullen winces, starts the verse afresh. This is good, this is all that he needs, to clear his head and focus before dealing with Surana. It’s not as if he’s spent the months since their brief dalliance occupied with thoughts of her; on the contrary, she’s hardly been on his mind at all. He went through a period of gnawing guilt after Ellana returned, but as unfavourably as it paints him, he got over it quickly, and if she picked up on any strangeness in his demeanour, she never mentioned it. It’s far easier to forget his own sins than to forgive them, apparently.

The only time Neria’s crossed his mind in the intervening time is in dreams, and that’s nothing new.

_“You have walked beside me_  
_Down the paths where a thousand arrows sought my flesh._  
_You have stood with me when all others_  
_Have forsaken me._

_“I have faced armies_  
_With You as my shield,_  
_And though I bear scars beyond counting, nothing_  
_Can break me except Your absence.”_

If the Inquisitor were here with him now, he’d have nothing to worry about. Even if the thought of the two women meeting makes his skin crawl somewhat, she keeps him grounded like nothing else ever has. With her, there would be no danger of getting lost to the inexplicably irresistible mysteries of his youth. It’s difficult for him to even remember other women _exist_ when Ellana Lavellan is around, she’s every bit a rock to him as his faith, and she makes him into the person he’s always wanted to be.

But she _isn’t_ around. She’s wandering the Deep Roads with half of his men building scaffolding and clearing tunnels for her, and if Cullen wants to keep being the sort of man who just might deserve her, well, he’ll have to handle it on his own.

_“When I have lost all else, when my eyes fail me_  
_And the taste of blood fills my mouth, then_  
_In the pounding of my heart_  
_I hear the glory of creation._

_“You have grieved as I have._  
_You, who made worlds out of nothing._  
_We are alike in sorrow, sculptor and clay,_  
_Comforting each other in our art.”_

Not that he’s worried. Not exactly. Neria is beautiful, and intriguing, but the infatuation is long over with, the bloom off the rose if it was ever truly there at all. But he also hadn’t expected everything she’d set off in him, seeing her for the first time in so many years, and he’d be a fool to pretend there’s no chance of it happening again. Cullen’s no fool, and he’s never been one to ignore a threat. There’s something about her that draws him in, turns him around to the point of bafflement, and then leaves him feeling more confused than ever in the aftermath, a ship struck by a surprise storm only to be left battling the wake once the skies have cleared.

At least he’ll be ready for it this time.

_“Do not grieve for me, Maker of All._  
_Though all others may forget You,_  
_Your name is etched into my every step._  
_I will not forsake You, even if I forget myself._

_“Maker, though the darkness comes upon me,_  
_I shall embrace the light. I shall weather the storm._  
_I shall endure._  
_What you have created, no one can tear asunder.”_

He won’t stray again. His strength of will is one of the few things about himself that he’s consistently taken pride in throughout his life, particularly during the parts he most regrets, and he refuses to jeopardize either his own happiness or Ellana’s just to chase a mystery. He’d felt tantalizingly close to answers last time, writ simply in her gaze as opposed to her heated moans and whispered entreaties for more, desperate-

Cullen stops. Shakes his head. Starts the verse over.

_“Who knows me as You do?_  
_You have been there since before my first breath._  
_You have seen me when no other would recognize my face._  
_You composed the cadence of my heart._

_“Through blinding mist, I climb_  
_A sheer cliff, the summit shrouded in fog, the base_  
_Endlessly far beneath my feet_  
_The Maker is the rock to which I cling.”_

Faith is not a transaction, a tavern where you drop a few coins of devotion on the counter and are immediately rewarded with a cold glass of virtue to see you through the night. Cullen knows this. But there’s a desperation to his prayers this night that he’s trying his best to ignore, some insidious little thread of bargaining that threatens to unravel the whole.

_“I cannot see the path._  
_Perhaps there is only abyss._  
_Trembling, I step forward,_  
_In darkness enveloped._

_“Though all before me is shadow,_  
_Yet shall the Maker be my guide._  
_I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond._  
_For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light_  
_And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost.”_

‘Do you hear that? I’ve done my part. Now do Yours and deliver me from myself.’

She’s just a woman. A mage. A hero. All quantifiable things. If there _are_ things about her that Cullen can’t put a name to, why should it matter so much to him? He knows all that he needs. It’s fine, and soon she’ll be back out of his life to resume her role as an omnipresence in his subconscious, nothing more.

_“I am not alone. Even_  
_As I stumble on the path_  
_With my eyes closed, yet I see_  
_The Light is here._

_Draw your last breath, my friends,_  
_Cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky._  
_Rest at the Maker's right hand,_  
_And…”_

“Commander!”

“One moment,” Cullen replies, rising slowly to his feet. He’s been at it longer than he thought, and as he heads back outside, the cool night air of the desert proves surprisingly renewing after the confines of his tent. “What is it?” he asks of the soldier who came to call.

“You told me to report when the Warden arrived.”

“Ah, yes. Where is she?”

“Um, that’s just it, Ser. She’s already left again.”

“What? Where’s she gone?”

“North. To the bandit encampment, said enough time had already been, um… wasted. By… you. Sh-should we send out a party to accompany her?”

Cullen curses under his breath, shoving his way back into the tent to grab his sword. “No. Our numbers are too few to go off half-cocked. Stay and tend the camp, I’ll go find her.”

“Yes, Ser!”

He pauses only briefly before setting out.

_“...be Forgiven.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a slow start, but I wanted to settle into Cullen's headspace before having her enter the picture to screw it all up again. Hopefully it's not too boring!


	2. Deny, Deny, Deny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing smooths over potentially awkward reunions like killing a bunch of dudes, right?

She’s beautiful.  Inspiring.  And terrible.  Every horror story he was ever told about mages, everything he was taught to fear and suppress, rolled into a slip of a woman and let loose upon the world.  That she operates on the side of justice seems somehow ancillary when she’s in motion, and Cullen finds himself wanting to slide back into old, worrying ways of thinking just by being around her.

 

_“Surana, hold!” he barks, already annoyed at how long it’s taken him to catch up to her.  By the time she stops and waits for him to make his way over to her in the moonlight, her face lost to shadows, the camp is a distant memory behind them both._

_“Commander.  Has the mandate changed?”  Her tone is clipped, professional, and he finds his annoyance growing for some reason.  That was supposed to be_ his _attitude._

_“What?  No, of course not,” Cullen says, coming up short and frowning at her in confusion.  Record time, that._

_“Than what’s the problem?”_

 

The sentries out front having been destroyed with frightening telekinetic ease while he creeps around to put the rear guard to the sword, half of their enemies never even make if out of their tents before being lost to a conflagration of raw destruction that he actually has to remind himself is not as unholy as it seems.  He catches up to her striding through the flames as the rest of the bandits emerge armed and ready to bear, threatening to swarm her until he interposes himself to clear her a path.

“You know, typically it’s the mage who is supposed to cover the warrior!” Cullen calls, the camp now sufficiently roused as to make continued silence pointless.  He expects a dismissal of some sort, maybe an assurance that she needs no cover, and has to bite his cheek on a grim smile when he receives nothing.  Apparently her clever tongue is the first thing to fall to the wayside in a fight.  That’s something he didn’t know about her.  And something he can respect.

 

_“What’s the- You just took off!”_

_Neria watches him expectantly for a moment before tossing her hands up, trying to prompt something more from him.  “And?  I informed your men where I was going.  Obviously.”_

_“We have ways of doing things, Warden-Commander,” he says in an attempt to regain control of the situation, throwing her title in her face as he does so.  For all his efforts, Neria just gives an exasperated sigh._

_“So do I.  If the Inquisition suddenly doesn’t want my help anymore, say the word.  Have fun explaining_ that _one to Leliana, though.”_

 

It doesn’t come as a surprise that she can fight, of course.  Anyone who could not only survive the terrors of Kinloch Hold but _end_ them where so many of his colleagues fell would have to be formidable, and she clearly hasn’t been resting on her laurels in the intervening years.  But he’s fought alongside formidable mages many times now, and Neria Surana remains in a league of her own.  She reminds him of a Dalish tale of Ellana’s, some arcane warrior that he can’t now put a name to, small of stature who would loom as large as a giant on the field of battle.  She certainly doesn’t seem like she can possibly be a real person, at any rate, and as a fresh volley of arrows ping mercilessly against his shield and she lashes out beside him with every primal force at her disposal, in some distant corner of his occupied mind, Cullen thinks about how utterly preposterous it is that he’s lain with her, that he knows the taste of her tongue.

 

_“Wait, are… Are you the one who told her about us?” Cullen splutters with sudden realization._

_“Um, obviously,” Neria scoffs as if he’s the biggest idiot in Thedas before apparently growing impatient with him and walking back off in the direction their scouts have pinned as the location of the bandit stronghold.  “And since when is there an ‘us’?”_

_Fortunately, Cullen’s still too indignant to acknowledge her second remark, chasing after her in a huff.  “I had just assumed we’d been too…_ indiscreet! _His voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper and he walks a little closer to her at that, even if there’s absolutely nobody around who could possibly hear them. "Why in the Void would you_ tell _her?"_

_“Are you serious?” Neria continues, infuriatingly conversational, as if he’s merely voiced a particularly odd opinion about the weather.  “She’s your spymaster, Cullen, and I don’t have to tell you that she’s good at her job.  If she didn’t already know, she probably would have found out eventually, and it sounded a lot better coming from me than one of her agents, I promise you.”_

_“When I made my intentions known to accompany my men here to meet you, she threatened to cut my balls off and feed them to her birds if I did anything to risk ‘cohesiveness of the Inquisition’!”_

_She just laughs._ Laughs.   _“Yeah, she’ll do it, too, you should really watch yourself.  Just be happy she didn’t tell your girlfriend.  You’re welcome for that, by the way.”_

 

“Thank you,” Neria grits out between clenched teeth as Cullen takes up position at her back to shield her from further attacks by the small unit of archers perched on an elevated platform across from the corner they’ve penned the remaining rogues into.  He needs to get over there and break them up, but her left arm is hanging limp at her side, the shaft of an arrow embedded deep in her shoulder, and she’s fumbling her staff as the blood starts to flow.

Cullen needn’t have worried.  All it means is that she finally goes for the sword at her hip.  He’d begun to wonder if it wasn’t just for show.

“Go!” she shouts, and even with her barriers wavering unsteadily around her, he doesn’t even have to think about it.

 

 _“There is absolutely no part of this I should be_ thanking _you for,” Cullen snaps in the face of her ongoing smugness, particularly in mentioning Ellana like that.  Naturally, she simply rolls her eyes, the flash of white briefly visible in the moonlight._

 _“Will you settle down?  I don’t know if you’re suddenly acting all salty to keep me at arm’s length or if you’re still mad about your tarnished virtue or what, but you have nothing to worry about, I’m not going to jump you in the middle of the desert.  First, because you made it crystal clear that was just a one-time thing, and second, because that’s just_ begging _for sand in awful places.  Hard pass.  Now we’re getting close enough that they’ll probably have sentries posted soon, time to put up and shut up if you’re so intent on tagging along.”_

 

The last of the bandit archers lies dead at his feet, and Cullen turns to watch her dispatch the last of the stragglers with a combination of her blade and ice magic.  He’s breathing hard, but otherwise fine, and he hurries back to her side as she sheathes her sword and immediately wraps her hand around the arrow puncturing her mail.

“Should you be-” he starts before wincing on her behalf as the arrow comes free with a quick spray of blood, but the woman is a skilled spirit healer as well (because of _course_ she is) and the wound largely takes care of itself for the time being, though her arm continues to hang awkwardly.

“What about those ones?” Neria asks, deferring to his authority for precisely the first time all night as she nods out towards the desert where a pair of small, darkened figures flee into the night, and he shakes his head no.

“No point.  We’ve been breaking up their operations here for weeks, this place was their last stand.  Let the ones smart enough to run keep their lives.”

“You sure?” she asks with a smirk, holding up her good hand and closing one eye as if she’s (rather poorly, in his opinion) aiming an invisible crossbow.  “I can probably get them from here.”

 

 _Well, shit.  Is_ that _what he’s been doing?  Cullen had been fairly certain he’d come across his annoyance with her honestly enough, but now that he thinks on it, she’d been nothing but professional until he prodded her, instinctively tried to corral her back into expected behaviours.  He came out here expecting to meet the temptress he’d last dealt with, seductive and sweet, conveniently ignoring that there’s so much more to Surana and that_ that _is his real problem with her._

_He’s not annoyed with her, he’s annoyed with himself for inadequate preparations, the same way he’d be over any such error in more practical matters.  He’d steeled himself against all the wrong things, and while he’s relieved that she seems to be happy to give him his space, he’s still dismayed at having so thoroughly misjudged her._

_Fortunately, he’s been dwelling on it long enough that they’re nearly upon the camp, sprawling off behind an isolated rock formation as they swing around to approach from the east.  He can put it all neatly out of mind to be the commander, the tactician, the soldier decisively taking out a threat to the region’s peace, instead of the disaster of a man who just wants to point out that the saying is ‘put up_ or _shut up’.  For once, even Cullen can agree that she’s right and he probably needs to do both._

 

It occurs to him then that, were this one of Varric’s trashy novels, this would be the part where she kisses him, when he’s caught in the lasting flush of battle and his defenses are down and he just gives in to the adrenaline and the illicit allure of the stunning creature before him.  They’d embrace amidst the carnage and the flames, she’d be _his_ in all her terrible glory and it would all be somehow perfect in the moments before they had to return to their lives.

And yet Cullen feels nothing for her.  Nothing untoward, anyway.  He’s a little awed, to be certain, with a newfound appreciation for Leliana’s insistence on using her, and there’s a lingering taste of bile in his throat stemming from the thought of how he used to view her and the way seeing her action almost seems to validate some of those awful old opinions of his. She's steadfast and brilliant, practically a force of nature, but beyond that… nothing.

It’s fine.  Andraste be praised, he truly has broken whatever hold she held over him for those strange few days.  Everything is fine.

 

_“Ready?” she asks, her voice the merest of whispers, barely indistinguishable from a breeze as she leans in close behind the rocky cover they’ve taken, mere paces from the bandit base._

_“Ready.”_

_Wait._

_When did he even agree to this?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [cullen be like](http://40.media.tumblr.com/8f0b223fcfef4ef79b8ccc9eac5d708f/tumblr_miadpnO4iR1rgz9z1o1_500.jpg)
> 
> And yeah, because of the higher level cap in Origins and the way you can rack up like 800 specializations, I headcanon the HoF as being the scariest motherfucker in Thedas, she'll go solo three high dragons before breakfast after this, whatever, nbd nbd. 
> 
> Another short, choppy chapter of mostly setup, the meatier emotional stuff starts next time. Why is action so hard to write, though?


	3. On Love, In Sadness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen gets a little closer to his ultimate goals, while Surana has no such luck.

“I should apologize.”

Neria looks over at him curiously as she shakes her injured arm out a bit, trying to jog the feeling back into it as they make the long trek back to the Inquisition’s camp. “For what?”

“My behaviour. I’ve been terribly… unchivalrous in my dealings with you tonight, and for that, I’m sorry.” Cullen’s voice is pinched, reluctant, but it’s something that he feels needs to be said.

For a moment, Neria says nothing. Then, “Wait. Seriously?” Surely such a simple kindness from him shouldn’t be _so_ out of the realm of possibility, but that can only be his fault.

“I would simply have you know that I hold a great deal of respect for you,” he sighs, hating how utterly changeable she seems to make him feel. “When I came out here, I was expecting… I don’t know what I was expecting, to be honest, and I behaved inappropriately as a result. Forgive me.”

Truthfully, he’s not actually too worried in spite of his mild embarrassment. She’s emphatically forgiven him for far worse behaviours, after all.

...at least, he _isn’t_ too worried, until the silence drags on without a reply, and he looks over to see her just staring at him, armor and eyes both glinting in the moonlight.

“Well?”

She shakes her head with a huff that isn’t quite laughter. “You’re serious. You’re actually in the middle of nowhere with a woman you regret sleeping with, and you’re still worried about _chivalry_. That is…” She trails off for a moment with another huff of air, edging definitively closer to a laugh this time. “Maker, Cullen… Commander. You’re lucky this is my stop up ahead, or I might not be able to help myself and then you’d _actually_ have cause to worry.”

That’s, admittedly, a little bit closer to what he’d prepared himself to face when meeting her again, and this might concern Cullen more were he not so confused by the rest of it. “What do you mean, your stop?”

She nods and gestures to a spot up ahead where the ground slopes down between rocky outcroppings and funnels into a path between ridges, rambling off into the west somewhere. “What, did you think I came all the way out here just to help you guys kill a handful of thugs? I’ve business of my own to attend to. Give my love to everyone back at Skyhold, will you?”

She’s glib, dismissive, and Cullen finds himself rallying against the idea on mere principle, without really thinking about it. “What? No. That’s… What sort of business? We’re not finished out here, there are reports to make, cleanup to do.”

“Warden business. And you mean _you’re_ not done out here. I’m sorry, but my arrangement with the Inquisition does not extend to paperwork.” She’s entirely correct, of course, and Cullen thinks that his justifications for prolonging this engagement might fall apart if he looks too closely (he’s not looking too closely), but apparently she sees something in him that causes her to relent somewhat with a sigh. “Look, maybe I’ll stop by camp and give you a hand once I’m done here tonight. No promises, though.”

“Well, how long is it going to take? Because the last time we heard something like that, ‘Warden business’ turned out to very much be everyone’s concern.”

“Not _this_ Warden’s business,” Neria shoots back, her voice hardening as she begins to walk away. “I don’t know, maybe a few hours? Maybe days. Maybe I won’t make it out at all! I don’t know!”

It isn’t until she’s actually leaving that he feels something like a band pulling at his chest and realizes he’s not ready to say goodbye yet. The situation simply doesn’t sit right with him, and he’s inclined to follow his gut on this one. “Surana, wait!” he barks in the most authoritative voice he can muster. He never feels like much of a commander around her. “Is it far? At least let me accompany you. If there’s something going on the region, it’s my job to know about it.”

“There isn’t!” she snaps, frustration pushing her voice higher as Cullen moves to follow her toward the pass. “It’s... personal. If I find anything remotely relevant to public safety or whatever it is you all do out here, I will be _sure_ to let your men know. But hey, it’s a free country, at least for people like you. Do what you want, Cullen, I’ve got work.”

“You’re still injured,” he sternly points out as he catches up to her. “And the night’s still young. The least I can do is ensure an agent of the Inquisition didn’t get herself killed immediately after an operation.”

“How very chivalrous,” Neria says with an unladylike snort of derision, but she seems to settle down a bit as rock walls rise up high above them. “You know this why the crown hates you people, right? Just _have_ to have your fingers in as many pies as you can possibly find, all across the continent. Makes people nervous.”

“The Inquisition does what is necessary, what others _aren’t_.” It’s not the most fruitful discussion to be suddenly having, Cullen thinks, but at least this is something he can speak with confidence about. Those topics seem in short supply at the moment.

“Yeah, well, start doing it faster. I stick my neck out as far as it will go for you guys whenever I’m in Denerim, but there’s only so much I can do. You’ll have to wrap up your ‘operations’ sooner or later, unless you’re shooting for some kind of holy war.”

Well, so much for confidence. “Believe me, I’m familiar with the baseless complaints, but do you really defend us to the throne?”

Neria sighs, continuing to work her arm as she walks. “If you’re going around calling me one of your ‘agents’ now, I probably should be, shouldn’t I? Look, I don’t disagree with what you’re doing, but you have to admit that it can look dodgy to outsiders, operating indefinitely like this. Not everyone wants your help.”

“Point taken. I’m still coming with you.”

 

***

 

As it happens, Surana’s patience with his new found inability to leave her alone has limits. She flat-out refuses him entry to the cave tucked deep in a rocky alcove that is apparently her destination, upon threat of physical violence that Cullen is all too happy to avoid.

Well. Not ‘happy,’ exactly, but waiting for her to finish whatever business it is she has in a random cave in the desert falls neatly under the purview of things he can do to adequately keep an eye on the situation. It’s fine, even if he balks a bit at her smirking insistence on calling it ‘gurn watch’. A little tedious, maybe, but manageable.

 

***

 

It’s been nearly an hour, now. Cullen’s been marking the slow path of the stars across the sky as best he can, doing everything in his power to stay alert until she’s finished, but there are only so many verses to go over in his head, so many tactics to mentally review, so many correspondences to begin composing before his mind starts to wander. He really needs for his mind not to wander right now.

_Blessed are they who stand before_  
_The corrupt and the wicked and do not falter._  
_Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just._

He’ll give her another two hours before he investigates further.

 

***

 

Time passes. Cullen fidgets. The occasional unsettling growl or scraping noise filters out of the cave every now and again, but their maps have missed this little gorge, and with no way of knowing how deep it runs or what (if anything) else in the area it connects to, the sounds are largely meaningless. He’ll take any distractions he can get in the moment, though, no matter how off-putting. _‘What was that?’_ proves to be a far easier question for him to focus on than _‘What if she’s not all right?’_ or _‘Should I have gone with her?’_ or even _‘What am I doing here? Alone with a woman proven to tempt me? While my forces await my return so they can get on with their work? Am I actually mad or simply a fool?’_

_‘Who would even have to know?’_

But no. His motives are pure. He knows this, the Maker knows this, and he will be steadfast, regardless of the way the damnable quiet makes his thoughts fruitlessly spin about his head.

_Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow.  
In their blood the Maker's will is written._

As his internal clock ticks silently past the arbitrary deadline he’s given her, however, Cullen doesn’t move. 

 

***

 

He needn’t have worried.

Not about Surana, anyway.

She stalks out of the cave after nearly four hours, emerging smoothly -- if not particularly silently -- from the shadows like she’s one of them, her veilfire torch having apparently been discarded somewhere along the way. 

She’s breathing heavily, eyes wide, but a quick, professional once-over tells Cullen she isn’t seriously injured; even her arm no longer hangs awkwardly. The only blood he can see is well-dried, all of it from their previous exertions except a dark red gash scabbed over the palm of one of her hands. She carries nothing with her that didn’t go in with her, aside from an air of bewilderment that throws him.

“Neria? What’s wrong?” He’s not concerned, not exactly. He’s seen her worried before, agitated, knows that she’s not inhuman in her fearlessness (even if his memories of seeing her when the circle fell are all suspect at best). But something is wrong, that much is obvious, and he finds himself just needing to know _what_. “What did you find?”

“Exactly what I came here for,” she manages, voice pinched as she paces, but seeming to get herself under control with the exertion. “It’s fine, we’re done here, I just need… a minute. To breathe.”

“All right,” Cullen says slowly, nodding. This is good, a feeling he can understand all too well. But she’s so much stronger than he ever was, so he’s caught off guard once more when she suddenly storms off, heads out of the gorge for about ten paces, stops, and _screams_.

_**“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!”** _

She’s bent over double by the end, her voice breaking sharply at the last, and Cullen sprints to her side.

“Maker’s breath, what happened down there?”

She holds up a hand to stop him, the bloody one, waving him off. “Nothing. I’m sorry, I’m just… tired.” Her voice is raw after that outburst, tidily underscoring the message. “I don’t have to tell you it’s been a long night, do I?” Then she surprises him yet again and abandons all pretense of normalcy to actually disarm herself, leaving staff and sword alike to lay in the sand so she can sit roughly down, her back against one of the path’s cool stone walls. “You can go.”

“As if I’m going to simply leave you out here after waiting about all night,” Cullen scoffs, hesitating for only a moment before gingerly laying aside his own blade and shield and taking a seat himself, a perfectly respectable distance away from her.

“Right,” says Neria, her voice tight with something more than simple sarcasm. Because nothing’s ever simple with her, is it? “That’d hardly be chivalrous enough for you. Night’s hardly over yet, though.” She’s shooting for flirtatious, but falters quickly, leaning forward over her knees, and it’s a long moment before Cullen realizes that she’s trying not to cry.

It’s a little unsettling, honestly. Though not as much so as the realization that, if she were to kiss him right now, he’d let her.

“This is about your mission, yes?” Cullen softly asks, wondering how much to push and if he really should just leave her be for this. “Your… quest to cure the Calling?”

“It’s kinda my big thing these days, yeah,” Neria replies, her voice regaining a bit of its prior edge as she sits back up, straightening her spine with a steadying breath. “I thought…” Another breath, and she’s fine again. “I really thought I was close to something, this time. Instead, I have more questions than I started with. And some suspicions that, if they pan out, mean I have a _very_ odd conversation ahead of me.”

“Nothing that concerns the Inquisition, I trust?” Cullen asks lightly, getting a brief smile out of her at his seeming single-mindedness.

“Not anymore, no.”

He thinks about that for a moment before deciding not to press. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

Fair enough.

“I don’t think there’s anyone alive with better odds at cracking this than you. You know that, right?” Cullen offers hopefully. “I’ve never known you to fail.”

“You’ve never known me, Cullen. Period.”

He's not sure which hurts more; her words, or how _defeated_ she sounds.

“Perhaps that’s true, but I still know what you’re capable of,” Cullen counters, shrugging aside the sting instead of pointing out that not knowing her is the whole problem he’s trying to fix.

She just groans through gritted teeth in response, smacking the ground beneath her with her palm in frustration and sending up a small spray of sand. That can’t be good for her hand. “It’s not the _same_. This isn’t some all-or-nothing scenario where I don’t have a choice in the matter and my options are to either get it done or doom everyone. Those are behind me. It’s just… a thing I have to do.”

“You might have to explain that one,” Cullen says slowly. “I was at Adamant, I saw first-hand what the Calling can do. It seemed rather all-or-nothing to me.”

Neria scoffs, a quiet, disgusted noise of derision. “If you’re a coward, maybe, easily whipped up into a frenzy. They’re not who I’m doing this for.”

“No love lost between you and your fellow Wardens, then. Got it.”

“Not quite, but you’re getting there,” she wryly says, and Cullen has to wonder if she knows exactly what she does to him, the strangely specific way in which he’s drawn to her. It’s something he’d rather not dwell on.

“If that’s truly the case, then I can understand wanting to… free yourself from that life,” he offers after a moment, irritatingly uncertain. “More than most, I would wager.”

“Oh, please,” she interjects, soundly ruining whatever moment he was trying to create. “You think I’m afraid of dying? No. Not that I wouldn’t do it, if I ever manage to- Never mind. Just… no.”

“Then why is this so important to you? Why let it eat you from within? If you’re not doing it for your order, and you’re not doing it for yourself, then why is it something you _have_ to get done?”

“I suppose the logical conclusion would be ‘for somebody else,’ now wouldn’t it?” she replies, fixing him with a rather pointed look as she rests her cheek against her knees, ignoring the way her armour digs against her skin.

That seems about as good an answer as he can reasonably expect, and for the moment, Cullen feels oddly satisfied, even as his chest dully aches at seeing her like this. “I don’t mean to pry.”

“Yes, you do,” she says, and her small, genuine smile makes it all worth it.

Neria closes her eyes, Cullen lets his head his head rest against the rock wall behind him, and for a few long moments, the silence is almost companionable. At least until the scuttling starts.

“Shit,” she says, eyes snapping open. “I forgot.”

“What is that?” he asks with a frown, glancing back toward where the entrance to the cave lies hidden in darkness.

“Cave guardian. We should, uh- We should probably kill that,” she says, scrambling to her feet as the first few legs emerge from the shadows to their left.

“Sweet Maker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a tough chapter to crack, and it ended up being 800% more talking than I meant for it to, bleh. The calm before the spidery storm, I suppose.


	4. Anger as Beauty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oops, they did it again.

It plays out like the steps of a dance. Choreographed, stripped down to its simplest components before being executed. Planned, practiced, and perfected.

_Those who oppose thee  
Shall know the wrath of heaven._

They’re armed and ready before the beast can approach, a great spider twice again as tall as Cullen, coloured sickly grey in the moonlight.

He breaks left while Neria heads right without a single word spoken between them.

_Field and forest shall burn,_

He taunts while she flanks, drawing ire while she unleashes devastation.

He’d swear that every other blast of flame comes close enough to sear his skin, but it never happens.

_The seas shall rise and devour them,_

Fangs batter his shield, pushing him back while he parries aside a tide of legs.

Venom sears the wood and metal alike.

He pushes harder.

_The wind shall tear their nations  
From the face of the earth,_

She flits beyond the edge of his vision, obscured by monster and shadow both, cascades of energy without a concrete source.

Sharpening into focus when she snares the spider, invisible walls suddenly pressing inward.

_Lightning shall rain down from the sky,_

There’s an opening. It’s suicide.

He can feel the unnerving tingle of a magical barrier and he takes it, tossing his shield and sliding through sand right underneath the beast, directly into the tangle of its thrashing limbs to thrust his sword into the vulnerable underside and lay it open.

He should be a dead man but for her guiding hand, and he ends up on his feet, panting at her side as the creature falls.

_They shall cry out to their false gods,_

The dying screech echoes across the desert.

She _(finally)_ kisses him.

He pulls her close.

Stubble scrapes against skin.

Mail scrapes against plate.

It’s perfect.

It’s over.

_And find silence._

 

“No,” Cullen gasps, hands on her shoulders as he draws quickly away. “I’m sorry, that’s not… no.”

She says nothing, just looks him square in the eyes (hers are the exact colour as the spider, he realizes), jaw clenching for a moment before she turns and begins walking away.

Shit. He can fix this.

“Andraste preserve me, this isn’t how I wanted things to… I never meant for… Maker, Neria, will you stop for a minute?” he stammers, chasing her uphill, where the rock gullies they’ve been following bleed back into wide open desert spans.

He isn’t nearly prepared for the anger he suddenly faces as she halts, whirling around to face him with fire in her eyes, a battle flush still high on her cheeks. _”What?!”_

“I- I can’t just leave things like _that_.”

 _”Shocking.”_ Her voice drips with disdain, and then she’s turning back around to resume her strident exit, heading off toward some ruins jutting out of the sands by their location.

“Can’t we at least talk?” Cullen blurts out, wondering just how many steps above begging he is right now.

She stops again at the base of crumbling stone steps, though she doesn’t turn around this time, her words seeming to come from further off than she stands. “You don’t want to talk, Cullen. You want to lie. And I am in no mood for that.”

What does _that_ mean? “That’s not what I-” is all he manages before she’s suddenly back in his face, her whole demeanour changing so quickly from one moment to the next it leaves him winded.

“What, then? What? _What_ is it that you _want_ from me?!” Her voice breaks as she shouts at him, fists balled tightly in front of her, and he grabs her wrists out of instinct.

He’s lost in her desperate glare, grimacing as she fights him, and he can’t come up with any answer beyond a hoarse whisper of “To know you.”

He feels the fight leave her and lets go as her arms slacken in his grip, only to have her step closer. Too close. “So _know_ me, already.”

“That’s not what… Not like this.” He doesn’t move away from her, but stands firm in his resolve regardless.

“Bullshit.”

“I mean it. This isn’t what I want.”

“Stop. Fucking. _Lying_ to me!” she suddenly lashes out, slamming a fist hard into his chest and knocking hollowly against his breastplate, causing him to finally back away from her for a few safe paces as she goes on, her words falling like rocks from the edge of a cliff, an uncontrollable tumble. “I make contact with your people, avoid you entirely. You follow me anyway. I make it clear I’m here to do my job. You follow me anyway. I openly flirt with you? You follow me anyway. I _kiss_ you? Oh, look at this, you’re _still fucking following me, Cullen._ If this _wasn’t_ what you wanted, you had plenty of chances to show it, but here we are. Lie to yourself all you want, Commander, but I am done putting up with it. Now you can either keep being virtuous, turn around, and go home, or you can be _honest_. Your choice.”

He’s lost for words, mouth hanging open for a long moment in the face of her speech before he shakes his head once, uncomprehending, like a child. “Why can’t I be both?”

She sighs, her tone softening while retaining an edge of raw emotion. “You just can’t. They don’t go together. Not for people like us." She pauses, the corners of her lips pulling up into a sadly knowing smile. "Do you think you’re the only one standing here who regrets what we did?”

“I-” he starts, and in his hesitation, gives himself away. Because he had. He really, truly had thought as much.

“Unbelievable.” Her voice goes flat on the syllables, naked disappointment in her eyes, and he thinks she’s going to walk away again, but she doesn’t. She steps forward and taps him hard with two fingers in the middle of his chest, leaves him swaying, though her voice doesn’t rise with emotion this time. “Even without the lyrium, you’re still a typical fucking templar. Thinking your secret, quiet pains are the only ones that matter, all locked away in your armour and righteousness. I guess it was never really fair of me to expect more, though.”

She’s wrong. She’s _so_ wrong, about all of it, she has to be, but Cullen can’t figure out the words to express how or why or even to refute anything she’s said. Maybe with time, he could put together a proper plan of attack, but for now, there’s only one possible action that comes to him, the only thing he can do that he hopes might soothe some small piece of the pain she’s carrying. 

He tries honesty.

The noise of surprise she makes when he claims her mouth goes a long way toward relieving his guilt for the moment, and then her hands are in his hair and her tongue is a slow coil of velvet behind her lips and the rest of it falls neatly away. She pulls just back enough to whisper, three words ghosting across his mouth, coloured with a smile that he can’t return. “There’s my templar.”

“I’m not a templar,” he returns, kissing her again and cradling her face between gloved hands, at least pleased to have something he can say with real confidence. No matter how glad he is for the fact of them, however, there’s always going to be a part of him that takes the words as a betrayal.

“Funny,” she murmurs against his scar, tugging him along with her as she ascends the ruined staircase at her back. “Last I checked, you weren’t mine, either.”

Cullen _growls_ , annoyed with himself for falling into such a clear setup, and plunders her mouth as he pushes her up the stairs, barely gives her the chance to breathe, let alone continue toying with him.

It’s too much, everything he doesn’t want but nevertheless needs, and he has to take leave of himself for a minute, let his body deal with the task of getting her out of her armour while his mind takes stock. They’re on a platform of ancient stone, the remains of some lost tower (Tevinter, he thinks, but he’s never been great at judging such things at a glance), two sides completely exposed, and between the partial cover and the scorch marks on the ground, he intuits that Surana’s been using the spot as a campsite. How long has she been out here? How much work was tonight’s disappointment the culmination of? Is he helping in any way by doing this? 

Perhaps more importantly in the short term, just how much weight can these ruins take? Because he’s got her down to her smalls, pinned against a wall that already tapers off into nothing just below her shoulders, and while she hasn’t been similarly bothered with getting him out of _his_ armour, she does have his leathers tangled around his boots to the point that he doesn’t want to try moving. There’s nothing sexy about tripping.

He comes back to himself with a gasp as she frees his cock, slowly stroking him to hardness, seemingly unconcerned that he’s still in nearly full armour. He manages to at least work his gloves off with his teeth before grabbing her hips, but he’s lost that pleasant fog of automatic actions that he’d fallen into, actually thinking about his movements now and trying to stop them, even as his erection strains against her belly.

He needs to remember why he’s here, why he’s doing this, why he _needs_ this when he has everything he could possibly want with Ellana. That it’s not about the sex, that sex is just… a desperate means to an end. To an understanding.

“Tell me what you want,” Cullen grits out, voice rough with desire as he palms every bit of exposed flesh he can reach. Her chuckle is dark music as she arches against him.

“I want you inside me. I want you to pick me up and fuck me until you can’t remember where you even end and I can’t remember my own name.”

Maker, maybe there’s something to be said for honesty after all. Her whispered words go straight to his cock, and he swallows her yelp of surprise and pain as he _rips_ her smallclothes off of her in one movement. The breastband he leaves (because why not, he’s still nearly fully dressed himself) as he slips his hands down to her thighs and lifts her up until their hips are aligned and he can slide his length along the heat of her entrance, marveling at how _light_ she is all the while.

But it’s not enough.

Some dirty talk, impassioned pleas, he can get that with anyone (not that he _wants_ it with just anyone, but everything’s getting all muddled as his mind grows hazy with lust). With Neria, his needs are more specific, and he has to fight to refocus his thoughts. Rephrase.

“Tell me why you want me.”

He’s rocking against her, the base of his shaft rubbing against the seat of her pleasure as she shudders helplessly, pinned quite literally between a rock and a hard place. Her voice, however, is entirely even ( _not helpless, she’s never helpless, she’s a_ mage _and even like this, she could kill him with a thought if the mood ever struck her_ ) as she whispers in his ear.

“Because you moan so pretty for a Chantry boy.” Not even a hitch in her breathing, and Cullen can’t help but be ashamed at how quickly the sensation of her tongue running along the shell of his ear gives a voice to her claim.

But it’s not _enough._

“I mean it,” he breathlessly snaps, pulling away from her mouth. Instead of similarly disengaging with his body, however, he pins her more firmly against the crumbling stone facade and lets go, forcing her to wrap her legs around him for even a hint of stability as the press of his armor leaves grooves across the planes of her body. Then, in a fit of further pique, he undoes his surcoat and shrugs it off his shoulders, lets it fall, denying her even a soft place to lay her head. “Why _me?”_

Their shifting bodies leave her hips canted forward, the tip of his cock brushing right against her opening with each wanton push, and it takes every ounce of self-control Cullen possesses not to press right up into her, to satisfy himself with just the slow slide against slick folds that his hips demand of him until he gets what he needs from her.

Neria centres herself enough to look at him properly, her eyes almost black in either this lighting or her lust, and she gets it. She understands. She _must_ , because she reaches up with one hand (the other clinging desperately to his shoulder), rests it against his stubbled cheek, leans in until their foreheads are touching, ragged breaths mingling, and when she speaks again, all traces of teasing are gone.

“Because you don’t matter.”

For a second, he can’t breathe. He doesn’t understand. But then it's all right, because he _will_.

Because it’s enough.

Her fingers are curling gently against his face when he suddenly sheathes himself in her, causing her to throw her head back with a cry. She _howls_ , and between the massive moon shining overhead and the brief flare of her nails digging into his cheek, Cullen is reminded of nothing more than a wolf. One that, for the next few minutes, he at least gets to have the illusion of taming.

It’s not real, and that’s fine. You can’t tame a force of nature. Why would you want to? But as he finds a rhythm and fucks her in this ruined, ancient place, losing himself to the slap of their skin and the taste of her sweat and the way her toes dig into his arse, something old and wrong and _perfect_ , he finds some place of pride. She’s been wandering these deserts for months, discovering secrets and horrors that only she and the Maker can comprehend, yet Cullen knows, beyond any shadow of a doubt as he splits her open over and over, that tonight is the first night that the sands have heard her scream.

It’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays everyone, have some porn! I've already got my presents, so I'm off the hook.


	5. Not Accepted Anywhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pillow talk.

Maybe it’s simply a matter of his mind working harder to fill in details when they count, but Cullen will swear upon pain of death to being able to remember every last second of the first few times he and Ellana made love. Every touch. Every sigh, imprinted indelibly in his memories.

_Hands scrabbling for purchase against his armour, denied even as her climax washes over her and leaves her frantic. Her hair’s coming loose from her bun, something not even the fighting could do. How did he think he could ever say no to this?_

With Neria, it’s different. Either it doesn’t mean enough for him to do such mental gymnastics, (which doesn’t seem right, he could be ruining everything just for a tumble, it _has_ to mean something), or the memories blaze too brightly to grip for too long. He’s left instead with a series of instants, flashes of passion linked together only by feelings and a vague awareness of what must have otherwise transpired.

_Pulling her back from the wall, supporting all of her weight now as he spears her, manipulating the rise and fall of her body against his with arms and hips and gravity all working in tandem, her breath coming in panting gasps as he claims her, controls her._

It’s a bit like what he’s always imagined lyrium madness to be like.

 _He can’t do this forever. His muscles are screaming at him to stop, thighs aching as he increases his pace and shifts her weight in his arms as if he could possibly get any deeper. He can’t bring himself to stop, pistoning his hips upward like a man possessed, afraid that the spell will break if he dares to separate from her before completion. He’s not_ there _yet, though, he’s not getting where he needs to, at least not until he hears her exhausted breaths coalesce into words, “Cullen, my Cullen, my Cullen,” quiet and heartfelt, like a prayer. The roar of blood rushing through his ears is so loud now that he might just be imagining it, but it doesn’t matter. It’s all he needs._

He sifts through the memories, catalogues them, searching for meaning in anything he can grasp.

_She laughs once, high and almost hysterical as he sets her down on trembling legs, sweeping a shaky hand back through hair that’s fallen in her face. She leans against him for support for only a moment before setting to work on finally undressing him properly. She’s not done with him yet._

She tastes a bit like lyrium, now that he thinks on it.

“Shouldn’t you be getting back soon?” she cuts through the clutter of his thoughts to ask, cautious, clearly expecting another hasty exit on his part now that the sweat has had a chance to cool.

He considers it for only the briefest of moments before shaking his head and dragging his shirt over to ball up and use as a makeshift pillow. “It’s fine. We’ve got at least an hour, my lieutenants won’t make a call about sending a patrol to look for me until dawn.” It would be so much smarter not to linger, but Cullen no longer has the luxury of hope that he can just put this all behind him once it’s over. No, this is now officially an ongoing lapse in judgment, so he might as well enjoy the peace while he can.

Neria just gives a soft noise of assent before shifting closer, pressing her naked form snug against him and hooking one leg over his, lithe curves contouring around the hard planes of his own body with a relaxed sigh. She has his cloak around her shoulders, a silent retaliation for his insistence on removing it earlier, and the furs tickle his neck as she rests her head against his chest. A chill wind blows, but Cullen doesn’t feel it between the fire crackling away to one side and the goddess curled up against the other. It’s a perfect moment, or at least it should be. The conjured flames unnerve him, though, licking away at nothing, sustained only by the glyph glowing hotly against the rock floor, and even stranger still is how perfectly his cloak somehow suits her, her dark hair falling in waves after being tied up all day and seeming to flow right into the furs.

Profoundly wrong in its _rightness,_ and Cullen chooses to focus instead on the gentle play of her fingertips, walking idle patterns across his skin. Women usually seem enraptured by his scars, the maps of trauma carved into his skin, but not her. Maybe because she’s got so many of her own, though the shining silver marks that adorn her body are a far cry from the uglier ones he bears. The benefits of always having the ability to heal on hand. No, she’s simply tracing the outlines of his muscles, he thinks, and he closes his eyes in something akin to contentment.

“Mmmm, I’d forgotten what it’s like to be with someone so… _rrf,_ ” Neria says, unable to come up with the proper word and so instead punctuating the statement by leaning down and biting him lightly in the abdomen, causing his eyes to snap back open.

“Ow!” Cullen exclaims before laughing. “Maker’s breath, woman, you’ve got sharp little teeth.” It shouldn’t be this easy. Why is this so easy? She shoots him a slightly sheepish smile before shrugging and smoothing over the spot with her tongue. He shivers in spite of the heat. “Is that what this is, then? Your lover is growing a little soft around the middle and you’re looking for an upgrade?”

It’s her turn to snap to attention at that, eyes wide for a moment as she lifts her head. “Shit, that is… _exactly_ how that sounded, isn’t it? No, that is not what I meant at _all_ ,” she blurts out in a rush before burying her face against him, hiding in his cloak.

“Relax,” Cullen chuckles, slipping his arm snugly around her. It’s impossible to react any other way when he notices the tips of her ears have gone pink. The dread elvhen battle mage herself. “I was kidding. Mostly.” He’s trying to keep things light, but he’s also trying to figure out how to broach the problem at hand, that he _is_ legitimately still attempting to figure out what this is.

“I was just… appreciating the bounty I’ve been given,” Neria teases, peeking back up at him and pressing a kiss just above his heart.

With that, Cullen can pretend no longer. He sighs, his smile fading. “This is going to happen again, isn’t it?”

She lays her head back down, silent for a moment. “Only if you want it to.”

Another sigh, then. “This is going to happen again.”

“Look,” Neria starts, letting her fingers drift soothingly along his side. “There are absolutely no guarantees in this world. Outside of the next few minutes, there is precious little I can say for sure. And there’s no sense in feeling guilty for things you haven’t done yet.”

“The things I’ve already done, though, those are fair game, I trust?” he asks with a slight sneer, though he tightens his hold on her.

“Oh, no,” she says, right back to teasing as her touch draws lower, skimming across his hips. “You’re not done here yet. Save it for later.”

Well, at least she’s not telling him to stow the guilt entirely. She’s smarter than that. Besides, he’s just a Chantry boy, according to her, so what else is he good for? Cullen shifts underneath her gentle ministrations for a moment before covering her hand with his own, stilling her.

“What you said, before… about how I don’t matter,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound too pathetic in the process, too hurt. “What did you mean by that?”

She sits up a bit to look at him properly, expression unreadable. “Don’t take it the wrong way.”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying not to do, so… help me out here, Neria.” He threads his fingers through hers and is nearly ashamed at the relief he feels when she returns the gesture.

“I like you, Cullen. I care about you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. It has nothing to do with that.”

“Then what?” He’s fighting the urge to sit up, get agitated, because he’s just so tired of _not understanding_ her. “If I don’t matter to you, then _this_ shouldn’t matter to you, and I can’t believe that I would jeopardize everything that matters to me for something that _doesn’t_.”

She hesitates, choosing her words carefully, and Cullen wonders if he shouldn’t start feeling a little bit used. “You can’t mistake substance for importance. When I say that you don’t matter, it’s not that it doesn’t _mean_ something, it’s just that… what it means is more… oh, Maker, I’m explaining this so badly.” 

She looks away, cloaks her face in shadows as the firelight dances across her body, but Cullen refuses to prompt her further, waits for her to try again. She’s got to give him _something_ , here.

“It’s like this. Tell me something.”

He looks at her in confusion, but is willing to go along with it in his desperation for answers. “All right. What?”

“Anything. The only stipulations are that it has to be true, it has to be at least somewhat significant, and it has to be something that you haven’t told anybody else.”

“What, never?”

“Never ever. Doesn’t necessarily have to be a secret, just… something you’ve never told anyone.”

“I- I’ll have to think about that,” Cullen relents after a long, slightly bewildered moment. What she’s trying to prove here, he has no idea, but for some reason, he trusts that there’s a point to it.

Neria just nods once, lips quirking upward for the briefest of moments. “You said we’ve got time.”

It’s a more difficult request than it seems at first blush. He’s unburdened himself of so much over the last year that he can’t seem to come up with anything that might fit the criteria she’s laid out. At least nothing that he’ll ever tell another living being, because even having Ellana in his life, someone he’s trusted with the darkest parts of his soul, there are always going to be some memories that are his and his alone to bear. Aside from those walled-off bits, sealed forever in some anonymous tower in a lake, what hasn’t he had either will or cause to share?

Then it comes to him. Nothing he would _ever_ otherwise tell Neria, the very idea of it unbalancing him, but she’s the one who asked. And if he truly doesn’t matter to her, then neither should anything he says here, right? Just thinking about all of these things again has made him beyond weary of her games. 

“All right. I’ve got it.”

“Hit me,” Neria replies, settling easily against his chest again and looking up at him expectantly.

If anything will put the lie to her words, Cullen thinks that this should do it.

“Back in Kirkwall,” he starts, “there was a woman. Of… the evening. If you will.” He stops for a moment, takes in the small smile she’s suppressing at that and the encouraging nod she gives for him to go on before realizing that he’s not going to be able to look at her if he’s to have any hope of getting through this. Instead, he finds a particularly bright star directly above them to fixate on before he clears his throat and continues. 

“I would… patronize her, for about a year or so after I first arrived. An elf. Unassuming, brown hair. Small ears, small… everything. Wore dark makeup, had these tattoos on her face… not blood writing, just tattoos. Like flames. Eyes were wrong, though.” He feels Neria tense in his arms and his sudden concern wars with a grim satisfaction before he ignores both to push on, remaining fixated on that single point of twinkling light in the sky.

“It wasn’t a sex thing, or not _only_ that, or… I would choke her. During the act. To unconsciousness, sometimes.” Cullen can’t quite believe how easy the words come after that, even as Neria inhales sharply below him. For the moment, he’s above it all. “It was all strictly above board, worked out in advance, though I’m still fortunate word never got out, given the stories they already told about me. At one point, I had to start paying more because the bruises had gotten so bad, they were costing her clients.”

“ _Flames_ , Cullen, that is…” she finally interrupts, dragging him harshly back down to earth. When he risks looking at her again, her eyes are wide, stunned.

“...something I’ve never told anyone,” he finishes for her, voice still damnably steady, darkly pleased to finally have _her_ be the one at a loss for words. “As requested.”

“Yes, but I…” she trails off before abruptly sitting up, peeling herself off of him as her eyes narrow. “Why would you jump straight to ‘I get off on choking whores that look like you’? I’m not letting you strangle me next time, if that’s where this is going.”

“Maker’s _breath_ , no, I would never,” Cullen swears, rubbing a hand over his eyes like he can hide away from this conversation for a moment. Oddly enough, however, he doesn’t regret saying anything. “It wasn’t even _about_ you, not really. It was… what you represented. To me, at a very specific point in a time that is long past, and that’s it.”

“Well, that makes me feel much better,” Neria deadpans, but she seems to be settling back down some. “Andraste wept, Cullen, why would you tell me that?”

“Because you asked!” Cullen protests, pushing himself up on his arms to reluctantly join her in sitting up. “Anyway, weren’t you trying to make a point here somehow?”

“I _was_ , and now I’m asking you why that, of all things, is what you decide to drop on me.”

Cullen sighs in frustration, with himself more than anything. Why _had_ he gone with that, anyway? “Because I’ve already shared everything good I have with the people in my life? The only things left unsaid are all terrible?”

“Fine, but why _that?_ As opposed to literally anything else? Why gravitate to one thing that you knew would be supremely unsettling to me, in particular? Especially _now._ ”

She’s leaning in as she presses him, an intensity to her words, and it’s only then that Cullen realizes she isn’t questioning him because she needs an answer; she’s looking for a specific one.

One he just doesn’t have.

“I don’t know.”

“Try harder.”

Cullen bites his cheek to hold back another sigh, checking himself. He tries harder.

Was it spite? That would explain the dark satisfaction he got out of the revelation. But no. Neria frustrates him to no end, but he’s not angry with her for any reason, not anymore.

Is he trying to push her away? To scare her off so the choice of making this mistake again is taken from his hands? _Oh, please._ The Hero of Ferelden goes where she wants, fear has never factored into it. And for whatever reason, Cullen doesn’t think there’s a thing he could say, no particularly ugly piece of himself he could reveal that would change how she already sees him.

Guilt, then? The simple desire to unburden himself of something he’s ashamed of? He can tell Ellana anything, he knows that now, but that doesn’t mean he _will_ , not without bloody good reason. Just the thought of her looking at him with suppressed shock, pretending she’s not disgusted for his sake, because against all odds she _loves_ him, it’s enough to end him. Neria, however…

It hits him like a physical blow. Something heavy, like a mace, or a stone fist.

He told her the worst thing he could quickly come up with because he _could_. Because she’s special. A nameless apprentice glimpsed across the library while he was still breaking in his armour, she took hold of him then and never let go. A possibility never explored until now, but one he never _needed_ to explore until now, either. She’s always been special, but it’s not like any infatuation or love affair he’s ever dared to pursue, because he also doesn’t particularly care what she thinks of him. He never has. Substantial, significant, special, but forever lacking _importance_ in his life in spite of it all. He can tell her anything, because...

“Because you don’t matter.”

She smiles, and kisses him so sweetly he very nearly starts crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, that was a ride. This is the longest thing I've written in a very long while, and while I'm not sure what I think of it, I'm glad to have gotten it out. I have at least one more story left in me about these two, but I think I'll be taking a nice long break before I get to it, maybe do some drabble-y stuff in their world in the meantime before trying to get to any sort of conclusion. I don't know, the world is my weird depressing oyster, thanks to anyone out there still reading!


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